A Bike Ride to the Waterfall
Once fall sets in, the temperature in the canyons can be unpleasantly cold, so we decided to take what may be our last chance to go on a pleasant family bike ride. We threw the trailer in the trunk, and Karen drove to a local rental shop for a bike. Whoever stole her bike two years ago in Mountain View, California must still be enjoying it because they haven't returned it yet. :(
Leah was excited for our ride and put on her bright red cotton "bike gloves." When she ran excitedly across the parking lot, she fell and face-planted. She scraped her nose, but the gloves kept her hands from getting hurt, too.
When we stopped for a snack, Karen scraped her leg while setting down her bike. Baby wipes cleaned up the blood, and she says the wound looks worse than it feels.
The waterfall was in the shade, and the air was surprisingly cold. It was cold enough that Leah decided not to wade in the stream. Instead, we tossed goldfish crackers to fish (cannibalism?).
As I was loading up the bike trailer to head home, Karen started down the multi-use path to get a head start. A quarter mile later after I started, I approached a guy on a recumbent bike. After some skateboarders passed him, I started to pass, too, though I went slowly because he seemed a bit unsteady and his left tire was underinflated. Just as I was pulling up alongside him, he grabbed his brakes, locked his front left wheel, and endoed right into my lane.
I have a distinct image of the recumbent flinging the rider over the handlebars, but the next thing I remember was lying on the ground and wondering how bad the crash was. I was worried that Leah may have been hurt, but she was calmly sitting in the trailer and eating a sandwich as if this were a routine stop. The skateboarders stopped to see if anyone was hurt, and the guy previously on the recumbent just mumbled incoherently. At first I thought he was stunned, but I think he may have had some sort of disability, which made it hard to be too mad at him.
It's weird how memory works--I still don't know a lot of the details of the crash. I'm not sure whether the recumbent hit me or if I barely dodged it and flew off the path. There must have been some impact because I landed on the ground ahead of my bike. And somehow I ended up with a flat tire--the valve stem was nearly ripped off of the intertube, but I have no idea what caused this.
With Karen getting ever further ahead, Leah (with jam all over her fingers) "helped" me fix the flat tire. I prompted her to talk about what happened, and she said: "A mean person pushed us." I tried to explain that he wasn't mean, and that it was just an accident. With Leah's "help," I finally got the the tire back on, attached the trailer, and started riding. Thirty seconds later, we saw Karen coming the other way, surely wondering how we had travelled less than half a mile in almost an hour. As I told her the story, I noticed that my tire was deflating again--the spare tube had been previously patched and turned out to have multiple punctures. I wasn't up to detaching the trailer and changing the tire again, so we just refilled the tire three times along the way.
Despite the drama, the day wasn't as frustrating as it sounds. We had a really good time: the weather was great, we ate good food, and we enjoyed our time together. And today we all have scrapes and bruises as souvenirs.
Leah was excited for our ride and put on her bright red cotton "bike gloves." When she ran excitedly across the parking lot, she fell and face-planted. She scraped her nose, but the gloves kept her hands from getting hurt, too.
When we stopped for a snack, Karen scraped her leg while setting down her bike. Baby wipes cleaned up the blood, and she says the wound looks worse than it feels.
The waterfall was in the shade, and the air was surprisingly cold. It was cold enough that Leah decided not to wade in the stream. Instead, we tossed goldfish crackers to fish (cannibalism?).
As I was loading up the bike trailer to head home, Karen started down the multi-use path to get a head start. A quarter mile later after I started, I approached a guy on a recumbent bike. After some skateboarders passed him, I started to pass, too, though I went slowly because he seemed a bit unsteady and his left tire was underinflated. Just as I was pulling up alongside him, he grabbed his brakes, locked his front left wheel, and endoed right into my lane.
I have a distinct image of the recumbent flinging the rider over the handlebars, but the next thing I remember was lying on the ground and wondering how bad the crash was. I was worried that Leah may have been hurt, but she was calmly sitting in the trailer and eating a sandwich as if this were a routine stop. The skateboarders stopped to see if anyone was hurt, and the guy previously on the recumbent just mumbled incoherently. At first I thought he was stunned, but I think he may have had some sort of disability, which made it hard to be too mad at him.
It's weird how memory works--I still don't know a lot of the details of the crash. I'm not sure whether the recumbent hit me or if I barely dodged it and flew off the path. There must have been some impact because I landed on the ground ahead of my bike. And somehow I ended up with a flat tire--the valve stem was nearly ripped off of the intertube, but I have no idea what caused this.
With Karen getting ever further ahead, Leah (with jam all over her fingers) "helped" me fix the flat tire. I prompted her to talk about what happened, and she said: "A mean person pushed us." I tried to explain that he wasn't mean, and that it was just an accident. With Leah's "help," I finally got the the tire back on, attached the trailer, and started riding. Thirty seconds later, we saw Karen coming the other way, surely wondering how we had travelled less than half a mile in almost an hour. As I told her the story, I noticed that my tire was deflating again--the spare tube had been previously patched and turned out to have multiple punctures. I wasn't up to detaching the trailer and changing the tire again, so we just refilled the tire three times along the way.
Despite the drama, the day wasn't as frustrating as it sounds. We had a really good time: the weather was great, we ate good food, and we enjoyed our time together. And today we all have scrapes and bruises as souvenirs.
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